Monday, November 12, 2018 6:43 pm

A lot of people know a whole lot more than I do about the creator of the Marvel Comics universe. I’ll just leave you with this observation: At a time when doing so was definitely not popular, he dared to respect his young audience enough to speak to them as adults.

I learned one of the most important moral lessons of my life when I was probably in kindergarten. I learned it from a story in a Spider-Man comic book. You probably know that story, too. It devastated me.

“And a lean, silent figure slowly fades into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility!”

Like this:

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 6:11 am

As much as I have idolized rock musicians over the years, dating back to when I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was 4, I can’t point to any I actually wanted to be. Indeed, there were plenty whom I would not have been for love or money — Bruce Springsteen, for example; my own father was bad enough.

But of all the musicians I have appreciated over the past 50+ years, the one who was most like me was Tom Petty.

We both were Southern and cognizant of it — and, therefore, carried with us the weight of what was good and what was bad about that, right down to our evolving views on the Confederate battle flag. We both appreciated the classics. We both struggled with difficult — and, in some ways, abusive — father figures. (Weirdly, both our dads sold insurance.) We both struck out professionally and personally in directions of which those father figures did not approve. And neither of us forgot where we came from or lost our appreciation for the classics in our fields, even as we forged new work for new audiences in those respective fields.

Obviously, we’re not completely alike; just for starters, although a more than competent journalist, I’ll never wind up in anybody’s Hall of Fame. But I did do some pioneering work in database journalism and social media. Tom Petty didn’t ever get that innovative. He didn’t have to. He just kept mining a rich vein of classic rock and found ways of making it relevant to multiple generations. He lived and created long enough to become one of those artists whom parents and children go to see together. I was fortunate enough to see Petty and the Heartbreakers on their “Damn the Torpedoes” tour with Tony, and it was one helluva show.

Petty’s songwriting alone would have gotten him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it also is not coincidence that he spent most of his career with most of the same musicians with whom he first worked, years before he had a recording contract. The working relationship he developed with those musicians, primarily guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench, anchored a 40-year career, and hit song after hit song resulted from Petty’s lyrics applied to a tune Campbell or Tench had given him.

Petty’s songwriting touch was so universal that parents and children alike could describe his work as “the soundtrack of my life.” You didn’t have to be female or from an anonymous Midwestern state to identify with the subject of “American Girl” — you only had to yearn for something you hadn’t yet gotten. “Learning to Fly” could apply to 22-year-olds on one level and the middle-aged on a wholly different one, but in exactly the same way. Indeed, you have to work hard to peruse Petty’s catalog for any dated references; about the closest I can get is from “Even the Losers”:

Well it was nearly summer, we sat on your roof
Yeah we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon
And I showed you stars you never could see
Babe, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me

Not that many people, even young adults, smoke anymore. Otherwise, the sentiment is timeless.

I remember reading about 20 years ago a piece handicapping the likelihood of Petty and other artists’ being inducted into the then-new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (that happened for Petty in 2002). I don’t remember the exact percentage the piece placed on Petty’s chances, but I do remember it was in the 90s, with the lone comment: “The songs will suffice.” And so they did. And so, now and forever, they must.

If you needed any more proof that Godwin’s Law has been repealed, Donald Trump’s speech today should be all you need. Substitute “the Jews” for “the establishment,” “the Clinton machine,” or “the media,” and Adolf Hitler could have given this speech himself, albeit more elegantly. Hell, all it needed was “Goldman Sachs” and “the Sulzbergers,” as Adrastos pointed out. You could practically hear the Nuremberg crowds roaring as Trump all but concluded with, “Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Fuhrer!”

Coincidentally, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that normally worries more about journos in the war-torn Middle East than here in the U.S., issued an unprecedented statement today, which it had approved several days ago, criticizing Trump for his anti-press statements and positions:

This is not about picking sides in an election. This is recognizing that a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history.

Amen. History is going to ask a lot of pointed questions about who stood where in this year’s election season. And what has mattered to me, this time around, hasn’t been so much policy specifics — Trump’s “policy positions” are chimerae anyway — as a very simple test: What choice will enable me to look myself in the mirror? This year, the choice has been more stark than at any other time in my conscious life. And if I have done nothing else, I have made good and goddamned sure that my grandchildren will never have to ask me, “Grandpa, why are people calling you a good German?” And you can bet your ass that in years to come, I’mma be pointing my finger at the Trump supporters and shouting, “J’accuse!”

Adrastos also had this to say:

The good news is that Trump is going to lose; bigly. The bad news is that right-wing extremists have captured one of our major political parties. The B3 Brownshirts are infinitely worse than the teabaggers. I’m not alone in being concerned what happens if a less self-destructive, more intelligent demagogue *continues* the takeover of the Republican Party. It *can* happen here. I never thought I’d say that but I just did.

I think it’s important for those of us who know history to take a firm stand against Trumpism. That’s why I’ve started comparing him to Hitler at his least disciplined. Hitler had the good sense to *keep* the ugly underneath until he had enough support to enact his racist program. Trump has no self-control but he is every bit as ugly, which is why he needs to lose in a landslide. Some of us are worried that he’ll refuse to concede on election eve, whip his supporters into a frenzy, and provoke a sort of American Kristalnacht. The good news is that most Trumpers are, well, pussies and are unlikely to riot if it’s a blow-out. Let’s hope so.

(Honestly, and I admit I am a bad person for thinking this, there is a very small part of me that hopes that these “pussies” pull some shit after the election. The U.S. military is still by far the strongest on Earth, and my government lately has shown, as was illustrasted in January, a refreshing reluctance to kiss seditious white ass. Inasmuch as we don’t get a do-over on the botched Reconstruction, there’s a small part of me that thinks watering the Tree of Liberty with the blood of some bigoted, would-be tyrants of the so-called alt-right — and can we just call the “alt-right” what it really is, racists and neo-Nazis? — would have a salubrious effect on the body politic.)

A couple of things about that letter. First, although some states require would-be libel plaintiffs to send such a letter before filing suit, to the best of my knowledge, New York is not one of those states, so this is probably bullshit. Second, and more importantly, as an investigative reporter and editor, I’ve seen real libel-suit letters. What with all the whining about anti-Trump media conspiracies, this letter was not the letter you send when you’re seriously considering a libel suit. No, this letter was the letter you send when you want the rubes you are grifting to think you’re going to file a libel suit. In other words, it’s the letter you send to keep the rubes donating, which harkens back to Lex’s First Law of the 2016 Campaign: Grifters gonna grift.

(Worth reading: The New York Times VP/general counsel’s letter in response, particularly the second paragraph and the final sentence. I haven’t smoked in more than 30 years, but after reading this, boy, howdy, did I want a cigarette. The TL;DR version: Your boy hasn’t got a reputation left to damage, but if you want to dance, we brought our stiletto heels.)

The fact is that, in this election, we have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime, and the course of this campaign, has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning that I simply will not repeat anything here today. And last week, we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women. I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women. And I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.

So while I’d love nothing more than to pretend like this isn’t happening and come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream. This is not something that we can ignore. This is not something that we can sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad election season because this was not just a lewd conversation. This wasn’t just locker room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior. And actually bragging about kissing and groping women, using language so obscene that many of us worried about our children hearing it when we turned on the TV. And to make matters worse, it now seems very clear that this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life.

And I have to tell you that I listen to all of this, and I feel it so personally. And I’m sure that many of you do, too, particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts. It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street, minding your own business, and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long, and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. It’s that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them or forced himself on them, and they’ve said no, but he didn’t listen. Something that we know happens on college campuses and countless other places every single day. It reminds us of stories we’ve heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how back in their day the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office. And even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough. We thought all of that was ancient history, didn’t we?

And so many have worked for so many years to end this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect but here we are. In 2016 and we’re hearing these exact same things every day of the campaign trail. We are drowning in it. And all of us are doing what women have always done. We’re trying to keep our heads above water. Just trying to get through it, trying to pretend like this doesn’t really bother us. Maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak. Maybe we’re afraid to be that vulnerable. Maybe we’ve grown accustomed to swallowing these emotions and staying quiet because we’ve seen that people often won’t take our word over his. Or maybe we don’t want to believe that there are still people out there who think so little of us as women. Too many are treating this as just another day’s headline. As if our outrage is overblown or unwarranted. As if this is normal. Just politics as usual.

But New Hampshire, be clear: This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to — Democrat, Republican, Independent — no woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserve this kind of abuse. And I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong and we simply cannot endure this or expose our children to this any longer. Not for another minute, let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say “enough is enough.”

This has got to stop right now, because consider this: If all of this is painful to us as grown women, what do you think this is doing to our children? What messages are little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act? What lessons are they learning about their value as professionals, as human beings? About their dreams and aspirations? And how is this affecting men and boys in this country because I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women like this and I know that my family is not unusual. And to dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere. The men that you and I know don’t treat women this way, they are loving fathers who are sickened by the thought of their daughters being exposed to this kind of vicious language about women. They are husbands and brothers and sons who don’t tolerate women being treated and demeaned and disrespected. And, like us, these men are worried about the impact this election is having on our boys who are looking for role models for what it means to be a man. …

And in this election, if we turn away from her, if we just stand by and allow her opponent to be elected then what are we teaching our children about the values they should hold, about the kind of life they should lead? What are we saying? In our hearts, in our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly okay. We are validating it. We are endorsing it. We are telling our sons that it’s okay to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country. Is that what we want for our children?

And remember, we won’t just be setting a bad example for our kids, but for our entire world. Because for so long America has been a model for countries across the globe — pushing them to educate their girls, insisting that they give more rights to their women. But if we have a president who routinely degrades women, who brags about sexually assaulting women, then how can we maintain our moral authority in the world? How can we continue to be a beacon of freedom and justice and human dignity? Well, fortunately, New Hampshire, here’s the beauty: We have everything we need to stop this madness. You see while our mothers and grandmothers were often powerless to change their circumstances, today we, as women, have all the power we need to determine the outcome of this election. We have knowledge. We have a voice. We have a vote. And November the 8th, we as women, we as Americans, we as decent human beings, can come together and declare that enough is enough, that we do not tolerate this kind of behavior in this country.

That, bitchez, is what leadership sounds like.

Don’t misunderstand me: Whether Hillary Clinton wins or loses in 2020, I will support Elizabeth Warren to be the Democrat to succeed her. But if Warren chooses not to run in 2024, a speech like this, calling Americans to be our best selves and not to tolerate anything less, would be a damn fine thing to line up behind.

(I don’t know who this artist is; if someone knows, please advise and I’ll be happy to give credit. Cartoon by Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant, but was Photoshopped; the original included only the first three panels.)

“This has been the best week for all Americans of good will since Richard Milhous Nixon fled the presidency.”

This post started out to be a lot of gloating about how badly so many different people of ill will have taken it in the teeth this week. I was going to write a lot about how the moral arc of karma is long but this week it bent toward a righteous, multifaceted ass-kicking. I was going to write about laughing as the people on the wrong end of these decisions cried their bitter, bitter tears of frustration and rage, and how I intended to fill goblets and flagons with those tears and how the whole damn house was going to enjoy several rounds on them and so on. And I particularly intended to review Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissents in two Supreme Court cases so that you could enjoy the spectacle of a right-wing hack’s head exploding.

But overnight, those feelings receded. They didn’t go away. They’re still there, and for all I know could come flowing back in all their fury given the right prompt. But they’re no longer top of mind.

Instead, what I’m feeling most right now is something that feels quite foreign to me: satisfaction. Why? Because without doubt this has been the best week for all Americans of good will since Richard Milhous Nixon fled the presidency more than 40 years ago. Not only is the Confederate battle flag likely coming down at the South Carolina Statehouse (at this writing no vote has been scheduled), but a number of large companies have pledged to stop selling Confederate-themed stuff. And at the Supreme Court, not only was the Affordable Care Act upheld (again), the court also ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in this country.

That last one, though not unexpected, was particularly delicious because the bad guys were hoisted on their own petard. The anti-SSM crowd had argued that marriage was so important an institution to our society that it had to be protected. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in a neat bit of judiciary jiujitsu, responded, in effect, “Yes, it IS important — so important that it is a basic right that belongs to ALL.” And then he dropped the mic.

The batshit crazy right wing who would rather take health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans, dooming 20,000 or more of them to die prematurely each year, than swallow hard and acknowledge that a president with whom they disagree has done something beneficial for the country. As I’ve mentioned before, my family has some skin in this game, so I take this one personally.

So who won? Everybody, really, including the people who lost, because as a result of these changes, all of us, including them, are going to live in a better America. America is a little less bigoted, significantly more financially secure and a helluva lot more equal today than it was last weekend.

Now, this wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t point out a few caveats. For one thing, nice as it is to get the Dixie Swastika off the Statehouse grounds and to start a real conversation about the noxious culture surrounding it, we still have to start a real conversation about the larger culture of racism, of which the flag is only a symbol.

We would be morally obtuse if we didn’t grasp that the whole reason we’re even having a conversation about the Dixie Swastika is that a young man in the pernicious grasp of its culture walked into an old and beloved Charleston church and shot nine innocent people to death in cold blood. And we would be even more morally obtuse if we didn’t start that real conversation about the culture of racism. Oh, we’ve nibbled at it here and there — a number of politicians, including my own Sen. Thom Tillis, have been caught taking money from a white-supremacist group, the Conservative Citizens Council — but I’m afraid it’ll take even more bloodshed before we get serious about this.

We also need to talk about how easy it remains for crazy people to buy guns. I know that it looks like Gun America (including but not limited to the NRA) has shut down this conversation, and that more people will die needlessly as a result, but we need to keep having it anyway.

As for the Affordable Care Act and health insurance, we remain basically the only Western industrialized democracy where a health problem can bankrupt you. That still needs to change, for all the good, and it is a lot of good, that Obamacare has done in recent years (at lower cost than expected and with greater beneficial effects on the deficit than has been expected).

And while same-sex marriage remains the law of the land, there are still some holdouts, including some county clerks or deed recorders who are saying they simply won’t marry anyone rather than marrying same-sex couples. (Remember when public pools were closed outright during the desegregation era rather than be opened to African Americans? Good times.) They’ll have to be sued individually. But they will be. And they, too, will lose. And there no doubt will continue to be lawsuits because in areas other than marriage, some people will continue to insist, in the face of law, logic, and morality, that LGBTQ folks don’t have the same rights as the rest of us.

All these challenges, and some nontrivial losses, still lie ahead of us. More blood and treasure will be spilled. Reactionaries gonna react. It’s what they do. It’s how they roll. And they tend to get worse, to escalate, every time they do; as Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog reminds us, “they vote, they dominate many American states, and they own guns.” And they’re getting at least some positive reinforcement from high places; as my friend Mark Costley observed on Facebook of the Supreme Court’s dissenters:

… they are — I believe consciously — furthering a right wing theme calculated to weaken the confidence of the citizenry in our government. The right wing of the Republican Party (commonly understood to be the right 11/12 of the party) has embraced an anti-intellectual populism in which the courage to be wrong and stick with your position is one’s greatest trait. This anti-intellectualism makes it impossible to engage in any effective discussion of policy making, national priorities, or governmental accountability.

Few politicians in U.S. history have gone broke inciting lack of confidence in the competence and good will of government, and there are a lot of scared, uninformed, armed people only too willing to believe the worst. So this, too, will be an issue even as we now have 35 years of experience in seeing what horrors so-called limited government inflicts upon our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

But I actually have some hope. As I observed above, this is going to be a better country for the losers as well as the winners in this week’s events, and it isn’t foolish to hope that because the country will be better, at least some of those who may see themselves on the losing end eventually will come to see that it all was for the best.

And I hope everybody else sees that, too, for this week has been as transformative in America as any in decades. And even as we begin to think about what lies ahead, it would be churlish of us not to celebrate it. It is uncharacteristic of me to say so, but I suggest we celebrate — not with the bitter, bitter tears of our opponents, but with champagne.

I would have thought that the Duggars would’ve lawyered up after son Josh Duggar publicly admitted to having molested some of his sisters, one as young as 5. But if they’ve got a lawyer, either he’s crazy or they’re not listening to him, because last night’s interview didn’t win them any friends.

Republican-turned-Democrat Lincoln Chafee, the governor of Rhode Island, announces he’s running for president. But of all the issues he could make a campaign centerpiece — jobs, inequality, global climate change, and on and on — what does he choose? The metric system.

Gov. Pat McCrory has pardonedtwo men who had been in prison for 30 years for a rape and murder that DNA evidence now shows they could not have committed. But the two men were ruled innocent in a court hearing nine months ago. What took the governor so long?

Speaking of our benighted gov, he now says he plans to sign HB 465, a bill passed by the legislature that would extend the waiting period for an abortion from 24 to 72 hours. Not only does this decision suck on the merits, it also violates a very broad pledge McCrory made when running for governor in 2012. Asked by WRAL-TV what additional restrictions on abortion he would approve if elected, he answered flatly, “None.” Since then, he has broken that promise not only in this instance but also in 2013.

During the regular season, Curry broke his own NBA record by draining 286 3s. Over half of those came off the dribble, and nobody in NBA history has ever been able to generate — and convert — his own looks like this. It’s not just that Curry is a great shooter, it’s that Curry is the most creative great shooter ever.

Researchers have found patterns in then-President Ronald Reagan’s speechthat indicated Alzheimer’s disease years before Reagan received his diagnosis in 1994. I mention this not to take a dig at Reagan but to point out that this approach may be a way to diagnose Alzheimer’s in people sooner than has been possible up ’til now.

Sure, a ban on medical schools teaching abortion wouldn’t survive constitutional scrutiny. But suppose it did: Legislators would be sentencing a nontrivial number of women to death. How about we ban your fucking heart valves, you goddamned sociopaths? I’m sorry, but in what universe am I supposed to treat this as just another policy proposal to be dispassionately debated?

While I have argued that voter fraud — real voter fraud — is vanishingly rare, I’ve never argued that it doesn’t exist. Now, some N.C. cases have led to criminal charges. The cases involve two felons who hadn’t had their rights restored, a guy who voted in both North Carolina and Florida, and one person who wasn’t a citizen of the United States. It is unclear at best whether the state’s voter-ID law would have prevented the latter case, and clear that it wouldn’t have prevented the other three. (h/t: Fred)

The biggest American labor strike in 34 yearsis widening. The United Steel Workers are striking, and their membership includes the work forces at some oil refineries, so this could hit you right smack in the wallet. What’s that, you say? First you’re hearing about it? Well, go figure; it’s labor news. Charlie Pierce offered some perspective a few days ago.

As Andrew “objectively pro-terrorist” Sullivan rides off into the blogging sunset to, sadly, sickening and near-universal applause, Driftglass does us all a favor by recalling for us a far worthier blogger who didn’t retire but died … and who never got his due.

I’ve little to say about the passing of Dean Smith, but only because you’ll find much more and much better stuff if you go look for it. While I think it’s all but certain that he either knew or should have known about the academic shenanigans that apparently were taking off as his career neared its end, his stand for integration at a time when his job might not have been the only thing at stake will secure his reputation.

Just my opinion, so no link, but: No way do the Carolina Panthers re-sign Greg Hardy, even if a jury exonerates him (which I also don’t think will happen). Someone will sign him, but not the Panthers. Their front office has moved on, and fans should, too.

Relatedly, why is it such a bad thing for Brian Williams to lie when Fox News personnel do it day-in and day-out, constantly? That’s neither a rhetorical question nor an exaggeration of the network’s mendacity.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin tried to rewrite the Wisconsin Idea (the state university system should benefit the entire state), then got busted for it, then lied about it, then got busted for lying about it. Great start to your presidential campaign, there, goob.

The FCC comes out plainly in favor of ‘Net neutrality. That’s wonderful, but the devil will be in the details of the regulations, which have yet to be written.

Former Michigan attorney general Andrew Shirvellmust pay $3.5 million in damages to a gay college student whom he stalked online and in real life. Dude, wouldn’t asking him out, getting shot down, and then moving on with your life have been a lot cheaper?

A creationist theme park in Kentucky that wants both $18 million in state tax credits AND the right to discriminate on the basis of religionhas sued the state, which is insisting on either/or. Guys, look up the Bob Jones University case, decided more than 30 years ago. Penguins will ice skate in Hell before you win this.

If you’re waiting on the Supreme Court to settle the question of mandatory vaccination, you can stop; it already did. In 1905.

Vermont’s new motto is in Latin. So what do conservatives do? Start bashing Latinos, obviously. Teh_Stoopid: It burns.

English majors, rejoice! Harper Leewill publish a sequel to her 1960 masterpiece, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” on July 14.

Standard & Poors, the investment ratings agency whose labeling of crap mortgage-backed securities as investment-grade helped blow up the economy a few years ago, will pay $1.38 billion to settle those allegations. But — say it with me, kids — once again, no criminal charges against anyone.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014 6:00 am

Army officer Robert Bateman, a historian, dove a little deeper last year to show that the punch line of Owen’s classic poem was based in part on a historical misunderstanding:

Between the time when he was blown into the sky by mortars at the age of 22 and when he was shot dead by machine gun fire at 25, he wrote some poetry, the finest bit of which is partially stolen from the Roman orator Horace. It was repurposed by Owen. Dulce et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori. Owen had been taught that Patria meant “your country.” He called this sentiment, “the old lie.” You should read this poem, because it is beautiful, before you read my critique.

..But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
…the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin…

Owen shows us, up close, the inhumanity of war. Then in the final lines he mocks the notion that it is sweet or right to die for one’s country. To do this, he repurposes a bit of Latin from the Roman orator Horace:

…The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

See, early in the war, the British government had used Horace to encourage enlistment by appealing to the population’s Edwardian sense of duty. In 1917, Owen would have understood, “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori” as something like, “It is beautiful and right that one should die for one’s country.” Nationalism and propaganda colored Owen’s interpretation of Horace, and I appreciate his resentment. But I think Horace’s words can be understood differently — not as an old lie, but as a shared truth.

Pardon, for a moment, my amateur translation of the Latin. It is tinged and informed by history. Dulce roughly means, “correct and/or peaceful/beautiful/sweet.” The word “et” is the same now as it was then, “and.”

The next word, “Decorum” carries some freight. “Right” and “Proper” is often how it is translated now, but in context it means, I think, “according with the values of your society.”

“Est” is merely “is.”

“Pro Patria Mori” is a little complex. Pro means “for,” and “Patria” is, essentially, your country. Okay, no. That is not exactly right. That is just what Owens was brought up to think that it meant. In reality it sort of means, “The folks what brung you up.” Or maybe, “Your peeps.”

See, the problem is that the word “patria,” as it is often translated, is that the idea of a “country,” or a “nation” is a more modern invention than Horace, or any Roman, would have recognized. They did not think in terms of “countries,” and so Latin did not have words that talked about what we would recognize as countries. I think Horace would approve of my deconstruction. (No, I am not a Derridean.)

So the sum can be seen, Owen’s interpretation of, Dulce et Decorum est,” labeled by a man who saw war and called this “the old lie,” came out this way: “It is beautiful and right that one should die for one’s country.” But Wilfred was wrong. That is not his fault. He was a poet, not a historian.

Dulce et Décorum Est, Pro Patria Mori, should be translated this way: “Fighting and possibly Dying for your friends and family to protect and defend them, as you have been taught, is the right thing to do.” Nationalism and Propaganda colored Owens’ interpretation, and I understand his resentment. Horace had been used by the British government early in the War to encourage enlistment out of a sense of Edwardian duty. That is not Owens’ fault, he was reacting to his own nation — not the actual history.

But even knowing this, the dead march through my dreams. They are my friends, my soldiers, my cadets-turned-officers, my enemies, dead in their many ways, but dead all the same. For the same reason, friend and foe, they are dead. Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

And so, today, I ask you to remember them. All of them, because in the end, they died believing.

Thursday, October 23, 2014 8:39 pm

Walter Robinson, a reporter for the Boston Globe and a Vietnam War veteran, has made a kind of cottage industry of blowing up politicians’ overblown claims about their military records. And so it was that when he began looking into the military background of Seth Moulton, the Democratic Party’s nominee for the 6th Congresssional District seat in Massachusetts, he might have been expecting to find that Moulton had, shall we say, overstated his military accomplishments.

The American political graveyard has more than a few monuments to politicians and public officials who embellished details of their military service, in some cases laying claim to medals for heroism or other military honors they never received.

And then, uniquely, there is Seth W. Moulton, the Democratic nominee for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District, a former Marine who saw fierce combat for months and months in Iraq. But Moulton chose not to publicly disclose that he was twice decorated for heroism until pressed by the Globe.

In 2003 and 2004, during weeks-long battles with Iraqi insurgents, then-Lieutenant Moulton “fearlessly exposed himself to enemy fire” while leading his platoon during pitched battles for control of Nasiriyah and Najaf south of Baghdad, according to citations for the medals that the Globe requested from the campaign.

In an interview, Moulton said he considers it unseemly to discuss his own awards for valor. “There is a healthy disrespect among veterans who served on the front lines for people who walk around telling war stories,’’ he said. What’s more, Moulton said he is uncomfortable calling attention to his own awards out of respect to “many others who did heroic things and received no awards at all.’’ …

Even his parents did not know, and were told just this week, according to Scott Ferson, a campaign spokesman. …

Moulton won the Bronze Star medal for valor, the nation’s fourth-highest award for heroism under fire, for his actions over two consecutive days during an August 2004 battle for control of the strategic city of Najaf, one of Islam’s holiest cities. According to the citation and accompanying documentation, his platoon was attacked and pinned down by intense mortar, rocket, sniper, and machine-gun fire. With four of his Marines wounded, Moulton “fearlessly exposed himself to enemy fire,’’ moving among his men while ignoring incoming mortar rounds and sniper fire, and directing supporting fire that repelled the attack. The platoon again came under heavy fire the following day when Marines expelled soldiers from the Mahdi Army from another section of Najaf.

Moulton received the other medal for valor during the battle for Nasiriyah in March, 2003, the first major battle after the US invasion. Moulton’s platoon was credited with clearing a hostile stronghold. Later, Moulton rushed to the aid of a Marine who had been wounded by friendly artillery fire even though there was a chance that additional rounds might land at the same spot.

In the interview, Moulton asked that the Globe not describe him as a hero. “Look,’’ he said, “we served our country, and we served the guys next to us. And it’s not something to brag about.’

The greatest honor, he said, his voice choked with emotion, had nothing to do with the medals. “The greatest honor of my life was to lead these men in my platoon, even though it was a war that I and they disagreed with.”

I have no idea what kind of congresscritter Moulton would make. And in fairness, his openly gay Republican opponent (only in Massachusetts!), Richard Tisei, seems not to be the kind of slash-and-burn Republican who has done so much damage to the nation in the past five years. But Moulton’s heroism combined with his modesty — his servant-leader approach — is certainly something Congress could use more of, military background or not.

Great article in Charlotte magazine about the Suarez family, next door to whom I lived from seventh grade until well after I had left for college (Raul and Teresa were in my class at school). Their story is amazing.

Friday, August 29, 2014 9:15 pm

What he went through would have been harrowing enough if it had been only his own life on the line. But he likely saved dozens, if not hundreds, of lives by preventing a devastating explosion — while some lunatic was trying to knife and screwdriver him to death.

Like this:

Friday, June 6, 2014 1:33 pm

NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 17, 1944 – In the preceding column we told about the D-day wreckage among our machines of war that were expended in taking one of the Normandy beaches.

But there is another and more human litter. It extends in a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach. This is the strewn personal gear, gear that will never be needed again, of those who fought and died to give us our entrance into Europe.

Here in a jumbled row for mile on mile are soldiers’ packs. Here are socks and shoe polish, sewing kits, diaries, Bibles and hand grenades. Here are the latest letters from home, with the address on each one neatly razored out – one of the security precautions enforced before the boys embarked.

Here are toothbrushes and razors, and snapshots of families back home staring up at you from the sand. Here are pocketbooks, metal mirrors, extra trousers, and bloody, abandoned shoes. Here are broken-handled shovels, and portable radios smashed almost beyond recognition, and mine detectors twisted and ruined.

Here are torn pistol belts and canvas water buckets, first-aid kits and jumbled heaps of lifebelts. I picked up a pocket Bible with a soldier’s name in it, and put it in my jacket. I carried it half a mile or so and then put it back down on the beach. I don’t know why I picked it up, or why I put it back down. …